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526 Years On, Da Vinci's Clockwork Car Constructed
SimianOverlord writes "The Guardian (and several other news outlets) report on the attempt by Professor Paulo Galluci and his team to build a working model of Leonard Da Vinci's clockwork powered car, designed in 1478. Previous attempts have been made to create the vehicle, but they failed to work properly. This is thought to be due to a misunderstanding of the original design, which is corrected in the new model. Apart from the 1/3 scale replica, the team have also made a full size model but have not dared to test it. Professor Galluzzi explained "It is a very powerful machine. It could run into something and do serious damage.""
(Emphasis mine)
Not to pick nits, but shouldn't it have infinite miles per gallon? Zero miles per gallon implies that, no matter how much gas you put in it, it'll never go anywhere.
So we assume that because DaVinci was such a genius, this failure must be due to people failing to understand his design. Bright people then try to figure out what he could have meant.
It seems to me there is a very real possibility that what we actually have is a new design by those bright people, somewhat inspired by DaVinci's ideas.
In fact, my experience is that only another genius would recognize that the work of a genius could have flaws that require correcting.
Most people are sheep and blindly follow "the directions," even when those directions result in nonfunctioning items. They blame the nonfunctionality on themselves, rather than on the design.
Hence the notations you'll find on many processed food products these days, "You'll find that this might taste good with a little cheese on it. Or maybe some salt." They have to be told to "think outside the box," as it were. Many people get all weird about the idea of even modifying a published recipe. The published version is the "correct" version in their minds. Perhaps this phemonenon is a good part of why some people get all weird about the idea of open source software. They need to feel that out there, somewhere, is a definatively "correct" version, handed down from the mountain engraved on stone tablets by some programing god or other.
Most people who play classical music play it as if they were some sort of flawed mechanism in a player piano whose function is to reproduce the markings on the paper as closely, and mechanically, as possible.
The musical genius recognizes that the markings on the paper are one genius talking to another genius, saying, "Hey, look at this idea," and interprets the music.
KFG
Although he certaintly encoded his work on things other than weapons, mostly after he got old, his defense contractor work is most of what's encoded. Leonardo didn't give a shit about intellectual property, he had patrons. He didn't have to worry about the artist down the block stealing his animatronic kight design and taking over his contract with Wal-Mart. He got paid even when he didn't produce anything, which is actually what happened most of the time, and why he changed patrons more often than he changed his underwear.
He encoded the tanks and the ballistas and everything in case the wrong guy wanted to build them. He encoded other things for his own reasons, but he never encoded anything because he was afraid that Italian noblemen would start paying for the bragging rights of having the guy who ripped off Da Vinci stay in the guest house.
A food preparer follows the recipie.. a Great chef looks at the recipie for the general idea, throws it aside and then creates the meal.
Great Chef's also are extremely happy to tell you all about that meal, even the ingredients and enough information that another chef can reproduce it very well, if not exactly.. althoguh the taste will still be different as you cannot recreate the chef's steps exactly... not even the great chef can reproduce his creations exactly.
The Best minds in the world are happy to share with you how it was done... it is the no talent hacks with something to hide that favor hiding everything from view.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.